Digital signatures with Quantum Candies

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how the simple 'quantum candies' model can be used to illustrate quantum digital signature protocols, making complex quantum cryptography concepts accessible without requiring advanced quantum mechanics knowledge.

Contribution

It introduces a pedagogical model to describe quantum digital signatures, highlighting the potential of superpositionless quantum information processing for educational purposes.

Findings

Qandy model effectively illustrates three QDS protocols

Simplifies understanding of quantum cryptography concepts

Shows potential for practical, accessible quantum cryptography education

Abstract

Quantum candies (qandies) is a pedagogical simple model which describes many concepts from quantum information processing (QIP) intuitively, without the need to understand or make use of superpositions, and without the need of using complex algebra. One of the topics in quantum cryptography which gains research attention in recent years is quantum digital signatures (QDS), involving protocols to securely sign classical bits using quantum methods. In this paper we show how the "qandy model" can be used to describe three QDS protocols, in order to provide an important and potentially practical example of the power of "superpositionless" quantum information processing, for individuals without background knowledge in the field.